This week, I had the enormous pleasure of leading my first session with the Young Writer’s Group in Lynn Valley. It was a lively session filled with talent young writers from ages 11-17. We started our session with some writing prompts, and then I led them to an exercise on description, which I borrowed from a fun book I discovered in San Francisco, called Don’t Forget to Write! from the group at 826 Valencia street. This exercise was on description (and I’ve modified it slightly).I started the exercise describing the three different types of description:1. Not-so-great: These are those descriptions that could be better. They’re fine in a first draft, but when it comes time to share your work with others, you should consider reworking them. They fall under one or two categories:

Clichés: These are phrases you’ve heard so many times, they’ve lost their value as dscriptions, such as: She ate like a bird. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. He was as strong as an ox. It was as hard as a diamond. For more information on clichés, read my post on them.

Clunky/Awkward: These are descriptions that the reader cannot follow: Her hair looked like mashed turnips, only brown. His car was like a caterpillar crossed with a Great white shark. Read more...